Category Archives: Campaigns

Begin at the Beginning: RPG Campaign Creation Resources

campaign-setupSetting up a campaign can be a challenge. Where do you start? What’s important to develop before play? How the heck do you even start planning a campaign?

Below is a list of campaign creation resources available online:

  • How to Organise Excellent RPG Campaigns (http://dukestreet.org/archives/004096.html): Eleven tips for working with players and what (and how much!) information to prepare for your game.
  • How to Start an RPG Campaign Step 1 — Want It (http://homework.never-ends.net/2010/01/how-to-start-an-rpg-campaign-step-1-want-it/): The first post in a series on setting up campaigns. This one covers getting yourself motivated to begin a campaign. Other posts cover choosing a game system, choosing a genre, story creation, worldbuilding and more.
  • Campaign Creation (http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/category/campaign-creation/). A list of posts about campaign creation on the Campaign Mastery website.
  • Obsidian Portal (http://www.obsidianportal.com/): A site that hosts campaign wikis. A GM can set up a site for his game here, providing a one-stop place for the campaign’s players to look up important NPCs, summaries of previous game sessions, game calendars, and more. Offers both free and paid services.
  • What qualities are important when creating a fantasy RPG campaign? (http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/11/what-qualities-are-important-when-creating-a-fantasy-rpg-campaign): Tops for creating a generic fantasy setting for an RPG campain.
  • 11 Questions for starting a new campaign (http://www.rpggm.com/blog/2012/12/13/questions-for-starting-a-new-campaign/): My own post giving eleven questions that will help you set up a new RPG campaign.
  • RPGTable Online (http://www.rpgtableonline.com/welcome.php): This site offers on-line tools to help you run your game, including die rollers, maps, monster stats, tokens, and more.
  • Building RPG Campaigns (http://thewargate.blogspot.com/2011/10/building-rpg-campaigns.html): Advice on choosing a game system, creating adventures, creating a campaign story, setting up for sandbox campaign play, using published adventures, closing a campaign.
  • Campaign, Adventure, and Encounter Design Articles (http://www.roleplayingtips.com/rpg-articles/#design): A list of articles on the Roleplaying Tips website related to rpg campaign creation. Some topics include Choosing a Setting, Preparation of Material for a Roleplaying AdventureWriting the Effective Villain, and more.
  • Creating an RPG campaign for children, pt. 1 (http://rpgathenaeum.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/creating-an-rpg-campaign-for-children-part-i/): The first of three posts on planning a campaign for kids, using as an example the campaign the author created for his 7 year old son.

How about you? Do you have any favorite campaign creation resources? Feel free to post them in the comments section below. What do you find the most difficult about creating a new campaign? Any tips for making campaign creation easier? Please share!

[Image courtesy of aleske via Flickr Creative Commons]

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11 Questions for starting a new campaign

You’ve  great campaign idea and can’t wait tell your players. But are you sure you’re ready? Starting a campaign with only a few notes of ideas is certainly possible, but tends to make running the game much more difficult than it needs to be. Unless your campaign is a series of unconnected published adventures, you’re going to want some kind of plan.

Below are 11 questions to ask yourself when you’re developing an new campaign idea. While you may not need to answer all of these, thinking about them can help you solidify what your campaign will be.

  1. What genre/system? Do some research on the genre of the campaign you want to run. What aspects of the genre draw you? These are the things you want to focus on during your campaign. What are the genre’s standard tropes? What aspects of the genre are so cliched you want to avoid them at all costs?
  2. What setting? Maybe your game system has an established setting, like Castle Falkenstein or World of Darkness. Or maybe you’ve found a published setting you’re dying to use, like Ebberon or Midgard. Or maybe you’ve developed your own setting. In any case, take some time to look over your setting or write down some notes about what you’re developing. What aspects intrigue you the most? Again, you’ll want to focus your game on those. Are there any parts of the setting you don’t want to use?
  3. How many players? What’s the minimum number of players you need to run the game successfully? What’s the maximum number of players you feel comfortable handling?
  4. What character types? Are their any specific character types you feel are necessary to the game? Will the party need fighter-types and magic users or techno-wizards? What character types do you not want as PCs?
  5. What rules? What books? Are there any aspects of the game you don’t want to use? Make a note of these so you remember to tell your players. Nothing’s more frustrating to a player than finding out she can’t use the great PC idea after she’s already put a lot of work into developing it.
  6. What props or game aids? Will your game need miniatures, an in-game calendar or some other support or prop? You don’t need to find all of this before you start, but make a list so that you’ll have what you need before you need it. Campaign maps and real-world references such as historical timelines and atlases fall into this category. Also determine if you need dice, playing cards, tarot cards, etc.
  7. What inspiration sources? Make a list of things you can turn to when you’re out of inspiration. Movies, books (fiction and non-fiction), radio programs, websites, podcasts and more related to your setting and/or genre can help feed your creative juices when they run dry. You may feel like you’ve got an infinite number of ideas right now, but after you’ve been running it for several month (or years) ideas may be hard to come by. Do yourself a favor a make a list of idea sources now while you’re researching and they’re fresh in your mind. You’ll thank yourself later.
  8. What’s it about? Come up with a short description of the campaign you can use to find players. Create an elevator pitch. This not only helps you “sell” your idea to your players, it helps you pinpoint what your campaign is actually about. It can also help you figure out what you don’t want in your game.
  9. Who do you need? What major NPCs will you need? You don’t have to flesh them out right now, but make a list of your main antagonist(s) and any patrons/bosses/adventure givers. Who runs the government? What important local residents are you going to need? It can help to keep a running list or spreadsheet of the NPCs you create so you don’t forget anyone.
  10. How does it end? I know, right now the end of your campaign is probably the furthest thing from your mind. But it can help to have an idea how your campaign will end before you start it. That gives you something to work towards and can help keep you on track. If the game’s overall goal is for the PCs to overthrow the current world government, that’s going to require different types of characters and adventures than if you want the PCs to discover a lost continent.
  11. How does it begin? How do you want to start your game? It can seem like you’re putting the cart before the horse to plan the start the campaign after the ending, but knowing where the game is going can make it easier to know where to begin.

Of course, these aren’t the only questions you need to answer when starting a game, but these should help get you going. What are your favorite questions? What do you feel is important to know when planning a new campaign?

[Photo courtesy of CarbonNYC via Flickr Creative Commons]

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And *Then* What Happened?: Using Adventure Seeds/Hooks/Starts/Ideas

Okay, now what? Has this happened to you: you’ve seen something that looks intriguing in a list of adventure ideas (often called “adventure seeds”), you’d love to use in your game, but you have no idea how to actually build an adventure from it? If so, you’re not alone.

The biggest trouble many GMs have is “What comes next?” Okay, you’ve got the start of an adventure, but what happens from there? How much information do you need to create before you present your idea to your players? That depends on your players.

You could take the seed and present it to your group as is. If you’ve got a really imaginative group, they’ll take it from there, coming up with a plot that you could never have thought of in your wildest dreams and having the time of their lives doing it. I’ve been lucky enough two have had not one, but two groups that were like this. All I had to do was drop an idea and they’d pick it up and run with it.

The upside of doing this is that you don’t have to do a lot of preparation and the players will take care of the “what comes next” problem all by themselves. The big down side is that you have to think fast on your feet, because you’re going to have make up NPCs, locations, and rewards (just to name a few things) on the spot. And you have to keep track of what you’ve told your PCs so the adventure stays internally consistent(Though I must admit, my groups know I run by the “seat of my pants” a lot of times and are willing to forgive my inconsistencies. If you have a group like this, treasure them, for they’re golden.)

So what do you do if you’re not the kind of GM who can create an eight-hour adventure out of (metaphorically speaking) chewing gum, a pocketknife, and a few leftover pizza crusts? There’s actually a process you can use to create an adventure from the simplest idea. Over the next several posts, I’ll detail each step along the way and illustrate it with several examples.

[Photo courtesy of Selma90 via Flikr Creative Commons 2.0 license]

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20 Unusual City Encounters: From Beg, Borrow, & Steal

The Procuress, oil on canvas
Image via Wikipedia

Once a month, I publish a newsletter of quick tips for busy GMs called Beg, Borrow & Steal. Some require advanced preparation to use, but most are designed to be last-minute tips you can add to your very next game session — even if that session is tonight. Below is a sample from Beg, Borrow & Steal #2. If you’d like to see more last-minute GM tips, please sign up for the newsletter in the left sidebar.

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20 Unusual City Encounters

Tired of bar fights and pick-pocketing musicians? Do your players find city encounters boringly routine? Here’s 20 unusual (more or less) encounters to help liven up your city trips. Some of these could be played for humor — others are deadly serious and may make your players uncomfortable. All are designed to be used in any genre, though some may need tweaking for a good fit. Roll randomly from the list below or pick one that appeals to you. And, as always, twist, distort, fold, spindle and mutilate these ideas to fit your group and your campaign.

  1. A boy prostitute approaches one of the PCs (male or female) for sex. If the PC sends him away without any money, the group will later hear that his father beat him for coming home empty-handed.
  2. A bear-baiter loses control of his animal, which mauls him and then attacks the crowd. If the PCs kill the creature, the owner tries to bring a law-suit against them.
  3. A small girl asks the party to help her find her lost kitten.
  4. The PCs are in a side street whose only outlets are at either end. Two funeral processions enter, one from each side. Neither party will back up to let the other pass and the situation degenerates into a fist fight between the two procession leaders, with the characters in the middle.
  5. The PCs watch a church procession carrying an icon, relic, or statue. On the other side of the street, a disturbance erupts and in the ruckus, the holy item is stolen.
  6. A small child (age five or six) jumps out of an upper-story window. The PCs should have a chance to save her from harm. If questioned, she will tell them that she was trying to prove to her friend (still in the room above) that she could fly. The friend (also five or six) will corroborate the story.
  7. In a visit to an open-air market, one of the PCs trips over a tent rope that sends him sprawling into the nearest food display. The display contents go rolling out into the public street or market square, where they’re quickly gathered up by nearby beggars. The stall owner demands the PCs pay for the broken stand and the lost produce.
  8. The PCs come upon a crowd in the middle of stoning a woman for adultery. This is even better if it’s a woman one of the PCs seduced recently.
  9. In a very public place, a woman announces that one of the PCs is the father of her child. It’s up to you to decide if it’s true or not, or even if any of the party members have ever seen the woman before.
  10. One of the PCs is a dead ringer for the town’s mayor. People keep stopping her to solve their complaints and problems.
  11. The PCs get roped into judging a beauty contest (for either men or women). If you want to be truly evil, have one of the party members of the appropriate sex coerced into participating in the contest while the rest of his group are judges.
  12. One of the PC is accused of raping someone in the town. A twist would be that the accuser is male and the accused is female (“Your honor, she held a gun to my head and threatened to shoot me.”)
  13. One or more of the PCs mounts or vehicles are impounded by the local constabulary. They claim the PCs did not obtain the proper permits and must pay a fine to recover their lost transportation. The permit is fictitious — the locals are actually trying to make extra money off of unsuspecting visitors.
  14. The PCs come across a beggar child who’s only parent has just died. The city will not help the child (“If we aided one, we’d have to aid all of them and we just don’t have the resources to do that.”)
  15. A horse or working aid animal takes an instant dislike to one of the PCs and will attempt to bite or kick the PC every time they cross paths.
  16. The PCs hear sounds of domestic violence inside a nearby home. To up the ante, a child runs out of the house and begs the PCs to come help because “Daddy’s trying to kill Mommy.”
  17. A goat (from a farmer’s market stall or escaped from a petting zoo) chews a hole in one of the PC’s purse or pouch. Make a hidden roll to see if the PC notices. If not, she’ll be leaking small items from her bag until she either notices or there’s nothing left that will fit through the hole.
  18. A traveling musician sets her sights on one of the PCs and begins to follow him around, trying to woo him. You can make this as humorous (a harmless youth) or as serious (a stalker) as you like.
  19. A pet or small child becomes attached to one of the PCs and follows him around everywhere. If taken home, the pet/child escapes and seems to be able to find the PC, no matter where he is in town. This can be either very funny or very creepy, depending on how you handled it.
  20. The PCs stumble on or are asked to witness the public marriage consummation of a newly wedded couple.

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More Resources for Writing Adventures

Here’s the continuation of yesterday’s post on web resources for writing adventures:

Enjoy!

Web Resources about Writing Adventures

guidebooks-and-journalWe all struggle with it (well, at least many of us struggle with it) — how do you write an adventure that your players will love? Here’s a collection of adventure creation resources available on the web:

(Photo courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliehg/ / CC BY 2.0)

There’s tons more information about this out there. Tomorrow I’ll continue with articles on adventure writing from the rest of my blogroll.

Your Teacher Was Right … Creating Adventures with the 6 W’s

The six “W’s”. You know — the questions your teacher talked about over and over. The ones that every book on how to write covers: who, what, when, where, why, how. These questions are good for more than creative writing and literature analysis; they form a framework you can use to build game adventures.

Boys Writing at SchoolWe’ll take each question in turn, but you don’t have to use them in the order given here. I tend to jump back and forth between questions as I develop scenarios and adventures. Have you ever used any of these to create adventures?

Who

This covers all the “people” (including familiars, animal companions, talking ficus trees…) involved in the adventure:

  • The PCs: if possible, make a note of something about each of the PCs that could be relevant to the planned mission.
  • Major NPCs: this includes the main “villain” of the adventure, as well as henchmen and hirelings of the party, familiars, animal companions, and any NPC party members, as well as the person who gives the mission to the party (if any).
  • The players: Think about each of your players. What aspect of roleplaying suits each player? What aspect(s) does the group as a whole seem to prefer? This will help you make sure you have something for everyone.
  • Who wants the mission to succeed? Which NPCs are pulling for the PCs and what are their motives? Why do they want the PCs to succeed?
  • Who wants the mission to fail? Which NPCs will benefit from the mission’s failure? What will they gain from that failure?

What

This covers the details of the mission at hand:

  • The mission: set clear, tangible, and reachable goals for your mission, goals that will allow the PCs to know whether they’ve succeeded or failed without you having to tell them.
  • What maps do you need to have or create?
  • What props do you want to use?
  • What special items (if any) do the PCs need to complete the mission?

When

This covers the time period the game will take place in:

  • Real-world date: I often find it useful to note the real-world date I start a new adventure on.
  • In-game date: what is the in-game starting date?
  • What season will the adventure take place in? Climate and weather can add interesting obstacles to the adventure.
  • Time frame: does the mission have a deadline?

Where

This covers the details of where the adventure will take place:

  • Starting location: where does the adventure start?
  • Ending location: where does the adventure end?
  • What other locations are important in this adventure?
  • What customs, languages, and laws of these locations might the PCs need to know about?

Why

Often, this questions is overlooked, but it can be the most critical. It covers the reasons for the adventure in the first place, as well as the character’s motivations for undertaking it:

  • Necessity: why is this mission required?
  • Why the PCs? Why do the characters need to be ones to do it? If possible, list some personal reasons each of the characters would undertake this mission.
  • What are the rewards for completing the mission successfully, both for the game world and for the PCs, collectively and separately?
  • What are the consequences of failure, both for the game world and for the PCs, collectively and separately?

How

This question covers the methods the PCs can use to obtain the mission goals.

  • Be flexible: the PCs will probably complete the mission in a way you could never even thought of.
  • Be prepared: even so, you should have a least a couple of ideas how the PCs might successfully complete it.
  • This will allow you to throw them some hints if they get really stuck or start going off on an unrelated tangent.

Creating adventures can be daunting. The above questions should help get your imagination running. Of course, you may not need to answer all of the above questions for every adventure you create. And you should certainly feel free to change or add more questions of your own. The whole idea here is to give you a solid framework to start building an adventure; as usual, fold, spindle, twist, and mutilate to fit your needs 😉 .

If you use this method to help create an adventure, please share you’re experiences with us. If you’ve got other methods for creating adventures, I’d love to hear about them. I’m always on the lookout, myself, for other ways to create adventures.

Building Better NPCs II: 8 Steps to Memorable NPCs

stacking-stonesYou’ve got your NPCs classified. You’ve separated the extras and walk-ons from the bit players and major characters. But how exactly do you go about creating those unique characters? Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you create NPCs your players will remember, no matter what game system you use.

  1. Define your NPC’s purpose. Why is he in the game? Is he the PCs’ boss, the guy who gives them their assignments? Is he an assassin the king’s chancellor hired to get rid of the PCs who insulted him in front of his king?All NPCs need a reason for being in your game. Without that, they don’t need to be there, no matter how cool a character they are. Knowing why your NPC is in the game can make it easier to develop his skills and abilities.
  2. Determine your NPC’s importance. Is she just some clerk restocking shelves in the bookstore (an extra) or is she the PCs’ primary antagonist (a major character)? This will tell you how much time to invest in creating her. There’s no need to write a complete character history if her only role in the game is to announce the death of the crown prince.
  3. Define your NPC’s goals. What does your NPC want and what will he do to get it? For a major character, the goals you should define are:
    • Superobjective: What does your character want more than anything else in the world?
    • Current objective: What does your character want right now? What’s his immediate goal?
    • False objective (if any): What is your character pretending is her goal? Why does she want people to think that’s her goal, even if it’s really not? Not every character needs a false objective. In fact, unless you’re running a highly conspiracy-focused game, most of your NPC’s goals should be their real ones. That doesn’t mean she can’t keep their objectives secret. A false objective is one the NPC intentionally creates to hide her true ones.
    • Resources: What can your NPC “spend” to get what he wants? What is he willing to give up to obtain his goals? This doesn’t mean just financial resources. Does he have connections and contacts he can draw on for favors? Does he have skills he can trade for what he wants?
  4. Choose a Nature and Demeanor for your character. This comes straight from White Wolf’s Classic Storyteller system. I find determining a character’s basic nature and demeanor helps me play the character better. They’re great shorthand for a character’s personality. They also help keep me from making the same NPC over and over with different names. The nature and demeanor can be one word or a short phrase.
    • Nature: The character’s basic personality; how she is inside.
    • Demeanor: The face the character usually presents to the world.
  5. Write a brief history character history. Even a paragraph will do; it doesn’t have to be a huge timeline of every event in the character’s life. Where was he born, what year was he born in, where did he grow up? What in his life lead him to pursue his objectives? Having something of a history — even just a handful of sentances — gives your character more believability and connects him to your world.
  6. Write a brief description of your character. Height, weight, hair and eye color, race, gender, etc. But also go beyond a character’s physical description. How does she dress? How does she walk, sit, stand? Does she have an accent or have an unusal speech pattern? What mannerisms does she have? Does she play with her hair, pick her fingernails, hum to herself? You don’t have to make her a collection of strange quirks (unless that’s your character concept), but try to give each of your important NPCs something that makes her unique. What makes this elven princess different from every other elven princess in the world?
  7. Determine who your character knows and who knows him. This is the basic concept of a character web, which I’ll talk about next time. It shows how your character is connected to the other characters in the game. Does he owe a gambling debt to the Prince? Does the local sheriff owe him a favor? How does he feel about the people he most frequently associates with, including the PCs, and why does he feel that way? Determining why a character feels the way he does about someone goes a long way towards making the character believable.
  8. Create the character sheet. Now it’s the time to put your character in the framework of the game system. Now you assign attributes, skills, etc. — i.e. put in the numbers.

A note about names: You’ll notice I didn’t list creating a character’s name anywhere in these steps. For me, a character’s name comes about mid-way through the character process. Other GMs need to find a character’s name before they can even think about developing the character. You need to find the stage that works for you.

For your players’ sake, please, please, please use a name you can easily pronounce. You’ll be glad you did by the fifth time you say “__________ swings his sword”. And your players will find it easier to remember.  ‘Gwxflyck the Magnificent’ may look really cool on paper, but if you can’t remember how to pronounce the NPC’s name, the players won’t either.

Next time: Character Webs: the ties that bind

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Building Better NPCs I: Extras, Walk-Ons, Bit Players, and Major Characters

Not every NPC needs to be memorable. Some can be a barely-noticed presence in the PCs lives, while others need to cast a shadow over everything the players do. While NPCs are vitally important, most GMs have limited time available to work on their game and so can’t spend as much time as they’d like creating every PC as a full, unique individual. By focusing on your NPCs’ reasons for being in the game, you can determine how much effort you need to put into make each one. I divide my NPCs into levels based on game necessity. These levels are extras, walk-ons, bit players, and major characters.

human-silhouettesExtras

Many characters don’t even need names, much less character sheets — just a brief description of what they do and what their purpose for being in the game is. They probably don’t even need a name, though you should be ready to give one if the PCs, if they ask. I usually keep a list of  “generic” names, crossing off each one as I use them. Most of the time, we don’t need to know anything about shopkeepers, random city constables, or the stableboy at the inn the PCs stayed at last night.These are the “extras” of your game, the ones there to fill out the city or a crowd — basically living scenery. I usually create these characters on the fly, as needed.

Walk-Ons

Other NPCs require more thought. Some may be reoccurring “extras” — like the magic shop proprietor that the PCs always use to fence raided treasures sell treasure items they find on their quests. I call these “walk-ons“, though that’s a stretch of the term (in film and theatre, walk-ons don’t usually have lines, but in RPGs they usually say something to the PCs).It’s worth giving these PCs a little something that causes them to stand out. Perhaps the walk-on has a funny accent or walks with a pronounced limp or has startling green eyes. Maybe they use “Ummm” for every third word. You don’t need to go to extremes here — giving every walk-on a deformity or strange ability could start giving the sense that your campaign takes place in a carnival side-show realm. These characters should have a name, but otherwise, they’re like extras and need only a brief description and a purpose for being there.

Bit Players

Next up from walk-ons come “bit players”. These are recurring characters who play supporting roles, like the steward of a PC’s keep, or the king’s officious chamberlain that the PCs are required to report to, but who has no other purpose in the game. These characters absolutely need names and a more detailed description. I usually don’t worry about character sheets for these NPCs unless I expect them to be in combat; instead, I figure out their “web” — who they know, who knows them, and who owes what to whom. I also detail out their “default” attitude towards the characters. This attitude can (and will) change over time, based on how the characters treat her.

Try to make these characters distinctive through their personalities, rather than through just quirks. Quirks work well for identifiying one town guard from another, if need be, but they can become ridiculous on returning characters unless there’s a good in-game reason for them. Now these reasons don’t need to be detailed extensively — a sentence or two will usually do just fine. Perhaps the PC’s steward has an odd accent because he’s from a far-off country. Or the chamberlain walks with a limp because of an accident.  But much of a bit-player’s uniqueness can come from how she acts towards the players.

You should also have a basic understanding of the bit-player’s motives. Why is the chamberlain officious with the PCs? Why does the steward feel loyal to the PC? You don’t need to write in-depth backgrounds here — just a couple of sentences will do. Perhaps the chamberlain is afraid the PCs will distract the king from what she considers more necessary duties. Or the steward is loyal to the PC because he’s treated like a respected professional, rather than just a servant.

Major Characters

Finally, the top of the NPC list are the major characters — these are the NPCs who are so important to your game they are full-fledged character in their own right. These are the NPCs you need to create character sheets for and who deserve fully-developed personality. Create these NPCs as if you are to be your own characters, because in a sense, they are. Your game doesn’t need many of these — two or three at a time will usually suffice. Definitely your PCs main antagonist comes under this category. NPC members of the party often will, as well.

Always remember, however, that these NPCs, too, serve a function in the game — keep in mind their reason for being in the game, just as you would any of the “lesser” character types discussed.Now, this doesn’t mean get so attached to your NPCs you refuse to let them go. Antagonists die, get sent to jail, are removed from society. You have to be as willing to let go of these characters as you would any walk-on.

Be Flexible

You never really know how an NPC’s going to fit into your game until she encounters your PCs. I’ve had walk-ons become major characters because the PCs decided to mess with them and I’ve had major characters become mere extras when the PCs decide to have nothing to do with that NPCs storyline. Always be ready to move a character up and down the “ranks” of NPCs based on the needs of your game.

Next time: Step-by-step instructions for creating memoriable NPCs.

“Where are we again?”: Creating Unique Fantasy Cities and Towns

Sometimes creating a believable city or town is one of the hardest parts of building an adventure or campaign. You don’t want all your towns to look the same and you definitely don’t want to get stuck in the generic “fantasy town”, consisting of a tavern/bar, inn or other lodgings, magic shoppe, etc.

Below I’ve gathered a list of web resources to help provide city building know-how and inspiration. Enjoy!

Here’s some listing of world-building sites who’s information can be adapted for city creation:

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